FutureWire, itself an good source for articles that peek at the foreseeable future, has a nice couple of links to future-oriented wikis, specifically Future (which in an appropriately recursive manner itself contains a good collection of links) and Scenario Thinking.

Fast Company has posted a fascinating portrayal of the General Electric jet engine plant in Durham, North Carolina. What makes the story fascinating is the uniquely flat hierarchical structure of GE Durham and the amazing productivity unleashed by making employees responsible for their work. “The techs at GE/Durham have challenging jobs that matter, they have a degree of control over their work that is almost unprecedented, they adhere to demanding performance standards, they receive the training and support that they need to do the best work they can–and, as a result, they do just that.”

Japanese physicists have been experimenting with new bonding methods, and have found that ‘entirely end-bonded’ multiwalled carbon nanotubes can superconduct at temperatures 30 times higher than the regular type. Is there anything you can’t do with these little things?

Over at Forbes.com, Bruce Sterling has posted a short article speculating on the way money and banking might move in the future. Playful and serious at the same time, it’s a fascinating brainstorm from a visionary futurist.

Bruce Sterling’s published YAESR (Yet Another Entertaining Sterling Rant), this time about the future of money in that most appropriate of venues, Forbes. “Imagine yourself confronted by an electronic Web page that is eager to read you. Once it learns who you are and how much you have to offer, it make a ferocious effort to convince you that the money game is transforming, with profoundly new players, unimaginable new rules.”